A few days ago, the Lagos State Government announced the demolition of the remains of the two Ikoyi skyscrapers after the horrific events of November 1 on Gerrard road. According to a statement made by the government, the two structures will be demolished because they failed structural integrity tests carried out on them and will be pulled down through controlled demolition.
Despite the sad events of the Ikoyi building collapse, a more pressing question would be; how many more buildings have to go down like this simply because developers or certain real estate investors fail to ensure that their structures pass the structural integrity test?
Lagos is already a too populated city with people and buildings, finding a space of your choice to erect a building today is a daunting task in the state, the available lands would need serious evaluations and tests like the structural integrity one to ensure that misfortunes like the Ikoyi collapse are avoided.
The introduction of this test by the Lagos State Government is indeed commendable and also helps to determine the strengths of buildings from foundation to finish point, but enforcement must be strictly adhered to as well. Many lives have been lost already due to poor structures in Lagos, this is why we always advise that prospective home buyers deal only with reputable realtors in the industry for quality in service.
Avoidance of professional ethics and disregard for due diligence on the part of some property developers must not continue if buildings will pass the Lagos structural integrity test, developers must also strictly adhere to all the laws of the state on real estate. At this point, the only reasonable thing is to focus on buildings that would be coming up from now on as some already erected buildings might not have gone through this test. It is therefore imperative that property developers understand that property buyers deserve to enjoy the reward for their hard-earned money when they buy a property and even the developers themselves stand a very high risk of losing their investments/properties when they disregard standard and due diligence in real estate development no thanks to Lagos State Government laws on real estate development.
Enough of buildings collapse in Lagos, developers must begin to do the right thing and deliver excellence in service, as for property buyers, do your due diligence, ask questions and only deal with tested and trusted realtors.